Oh, my stars.

Today was spent in a room full of strangers. Shy in the morning, we grew to quietly love eachother by mid-afternoon. I wanted to snuggle up with the ones who smiled at me when I turned my face from the fake blood on the screen and the ones who made jokes when there were a dozen naked, partially decapitated plastic mannequins of various sizes strewn all over the floor. I liked the two yoga instructors, I couldn't figure out if they were relatives or lovers until I realized that they are probably just cosmically connected. I liked my partner for learning abdominal thrusts. She had beautiful dark features and dread locks, and we found eachother because, I think, neither of us wanted to be stuck being groped by one of the old men. I really wish I hadn't zoned through the teacher's introduction; she might even have been my favorite of all. Thanks to her, I now know how to create a sling for your busted up arm, and how to stop your heart from fribulating. If you are a naked, partially decapitated plastic mannequin, I can also breathe into your mouth twelve times per minute.

I had a two hour break in the middle of the day because I wasn't learning about infant and child CPR. Chances of me becoming a hometown hero may be slightly lessened by the absence, but amazing things happened as I wandered around looking for ways to kill time (or perhaps to keep time's blood circulating until paramedics arrived). I found Hudson's business district by driving around for a while. The rest of the town, from what I could tell, was rather shabby, but one street has some really swank boutiques and antique stores all lined up, maybe waiting for the rich city cats. Apparently everyone in town has a Classical statue fetish. I saw them, beautifully chisled (or molded), in nearly every shop window, and I wondered a little where and why they all came from. Alien invasion, probably.

And so, I ducked into a store that looked like it would make me feel less totally out of place and found the most unexpected friend-of-friends man. He has long hair and grey beard and pink sparkley sweater. He mystifies. He astonishes. He informed me of a concert in Troy tonight that turned out to be just just just what I needed after I got lost for a really long time.

I got home and watched Elimidate and wondered if Russell Jaffe was watching it too. Made a note: my calf is cramped for the third day in a row. What up with that?

I can't believe I'm still awake and still thinking about when I'm going to visit my new pal. I have those lately, and it feels prettty good. I need sleep now, because that is something I haven't had.